Collection Or Accumulation?

OK, so my last post got me to thinking about my "collection." You're right! I'm not in a mood to do any real work right now, especially since I have to be here until 9:00 tonight anyway!

I think I have a collection and an accumulation. My "collection" is housed in my albums and my "accumulation" in stock cards neatly filed in card boxes (Remember the Anal Personality?). Or, is the fact that my bulk/stock stamps are filed neatly make them a part of my collection?

What do you think? What do you have?

My philosophy is that no matter how you choose to organize them, if you enjoy having them and you would miss them if you couldn't find them, then they are all part of your collection. I have a lot of stamps on covers which I have saved over the years that I need to go through and decide whether to cut off the stamps and soak them or to mount them as covers in my album. These are not part of my collection yet, because I don't really know what I have. I haven't bonded with them yet.

I like the way you put it - you haven't bonded with them yet. I have a lot of trouble letting any material go, even when I have a dozen copies or more! I guess I bond with my acquisitions also!

I have definitely bonded with my Album material,
the "unbonded orphans" now lie in chests of drawers
(those cheap ones from K Mart)
and I currently have 6 drawers full.

Sometimes I open a drawer, pull out one item, and get that sorted and mounted, and I look at the rest and just sigh.

I am going to have to live to 157 to clear up this mess.

Someone asked me once, what would I do if I lost all my stamps.
As I sat and pondered this thought, tears started to well up in my eyes. Does that mean I am bonded to my collection?

Steve

Steve, If we lost them all we would start over and do it the right way from the start !!

Well now that's a loaded question.

My collection is still fairly new but:

I now have 43 Albums started for various countries as well as 2 dozen stock books worth of spares.

As for the unorganized stuff; I also have 50 or so small boxes from various Countries that are ready to be sorted by Scott no. It doesn't stop there. I have 2 photo boxes of envelopes from countries that I don't have as many of.

Then there are the 7 photo boxes of stamps on paper needing to be soaked and 2 photo boxes of unsorted.

But I love em all.

Dianne

Dianne,
you are the marque to which I judge my collection,
I only have about 20 albums.

Of course, I am going to keep your post
and use it as evidence when you bid against me at auction...

Mine is definately an accumalation at the moment. It will start to become a collection once I've finished sorting/counting those Dutch stamps and start identifying/cateloging everything.

My dear Rod

Trust me when I say that I will make up for bidding against you. I have been keeping track of what you bid on.

Dianne

Unfortunately philb, if I lost all my stamps say in a fire, flood, theft etc., I don't believe I would be emotionally able to start over. I am "bonded" to my stamps and to lose them would be too much.

A little bit of both.

I thought about losing my stamps last night as we had yet another plumbing disaster in our house. My wife flushed the toilet about 1:30 AM and a pipe burst behind the toilet and water started streaming down into the utility room in the basement. My stamps are on the other side of the house. I tried to shut the water off in the bathroom, but the valve was rusty and wouldn't close all the way. Going for the main shutoff valve in the basement, I encountered boxes and boxes of yarn in the way (my wife's a knitter and Ebayer) and other junk. After 10 minutes, I cleared a path through the closet only to find the main valve impossible to shift. My father in law at some point built a wood enclosure over the pipes with a small hole to access the valve and of course it was impossible to get a grip on the valve. The valve was also rusted.

As I planned how to move everything out of the basement if things got worse, I realized I have a lot of stamps. Unfortunately its mostly in boxes, half filed neatly in envelopes or cards, and the other half ready to be unhinged/sorted or whatever, filed and cataloged. Then there are the stock books and old albums that are awaiting demolition. So, at this point I have an accumulation, while I spin my wheels deciding on how to mount them to make a collection.

After a night of no sleep, a plumber eventually shut off the water from outside the house and stopped the leak. So the stamp accumulation is safe for now.

Canadianphilatelist I could start over..its what I am a stamp collector....yeah it would hurt..probably bad..but I still have the knowledge and would avoid many mistakes I made along the way..we take losses in life...i still shiver at the dot.com meltdown in 2000 !

I have a collection and an accumulation- I wouldn't really care about losing the accumulation too much (let's just say I've contemplated donating it to somewhere to make my life easier but there is too much pure garbage I would need to sort out). Now, as for my collection, that's rather different. I would be very sad to lose my collection.

My next door neighbor gave me a collection that they had in their basement after it flooded during a hurricane (before they had just been giving it to me in little installments). Ir makes me mad/sad to think about it. So many nice stamps and beautiful antique albums ruined (sniff).

Stamps are not tied to my eternal destiny. If I was deprived of them I would take it as a sign to focus on more important matters.